Stella+Saenz


 * SUMMARY: Stella Saenz, age 42, died April 13, 1968 from complications of a legal abortion performed in a California hospital.**

Stella V. Saenz, age 42, was one of the growing number of safe-and-legal abortion deaths that were to soon almost completely replace illegal abortion deaths in the United States over the coming decade.

Stella had arranged for a legal abortion in the spring of 1968. At that time, California allowed legal abortions, but only in hospitals.

On April 11, she was admitted to Los Angeles County General Hospital with sepsis.

Doctors administered penicillin. Stella went into anaphylactic shock; neither she nor the doctors had realized that Stella was allergic to penicillin.

Doctors tried to treat both the infection and Stella's reaction to the penicillin, to no avail. She died on April 13.

The California Department of Public Health classified Stella's death as both a drug reaction death and a legal abortion death.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources: California Certificate of Death 68-083706; Los Angeles County CoronerÂ’s Report 68-3820

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